Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 59
• Total blog posts published: 378

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read Continuous Discovery Habits, a framework for understanding and building what customers will pay for

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Create an opportunity solution tree for this project

Asks:

• If you can get me an invitation code to Manus, please let me know!
• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred sixty-four was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• No struggles this week

What I learned:

• Copywriting Course is a great service for getting feedback on your messaging for a product if you already have product–market fit.
• Google’s search algorithm changed about a year ago. Google began prioritizing blog content over other content types, such as lists.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week.

Last year, I wrote a few popular blog posts on biographies I’d read. Traffic to the blog increased, so people apparently found them useful. Since then, I’ve been trying to be more intentional with the blog. One area several people pointed to as a weakness was email capture. They said I was getting more people visiting the site, but they weren’t likely to read my new posts or come back to the site—unless I gave them a reason or reminded them. Capturing their email would give me a way to keep a reader I’d acquired engaged with (or at least aware) of my new material.

Email capture wasn’t something I ever thought about when I created this blog. People could enter their email address and be notified of new posts, but email capture wasn’t a priority. I never looked at the stats around how many emails I was capturing.

After hearing the same thing many times, I added a new feature a few months ago. A pop-up asking people to subscribe was added to the bottom of the site. Subscribers are notified of new posts.

The messaging in the pop-up was never really optimized. It was a placeholder to test whether the feature worked correctly. I’ve been learning about copywriting and am eager to put that knowledge to use. Today, I decided to adjust the pop-up message. I made some mistakes and broke some stuff, but it’s updated now.

This will be a process of iteration and experimentation, which is best done with data. So, I began tracking more subscription-related data. I can now experiment and see how effective changes are. I think these small experiments will be fun, and I’ll learn a lot.

If you have thoughts on this pop-up feature or the messaging, I’d love to hear them (criticism welcomed too). Write me at hello(at)jermainebrown.org.

The last month or so has been busy. Hitting my goal of reading a book every week has been harder, but I’m doing it. But I’ve slacked off in a related area. Earlier this year, I added this section, which shows the books I’ve read, to this site. My intention is to update that section weekly when I finish a book. I’m missing the mark in April—I haven’t added the books I’ve read this month.

I plan to fix that this weekend by adding my latest books. I aim to have the books added to my site by 12 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Last year, I set a goal to create 100 podcast episodes about the biographies I was reading. That challenge was uncomfortable, but it led to unexpected learnings. And it led to a new habit of reading a book every week (I’ve been doing this for over a year), my software idea, and other things.

I want to set another goal for this summer. It needs to be uncomfortable but directionally congruent with my current interests. I want something that will force me to grow by pushing me to the limit. Something I can focus on intensely with an end in sight.

I’m not sure what it’ll be, but my gut is telling me I should do something related to writing. I’ve been reading a lot about newsletters, copywriting, persuasion, etc. This challenge could be a good way to put everything I’ve learned to work.

I’ll think about it more, but another summer challenge is likely to be in my future.

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 58
• Total blog posts published: 371

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read A Technique for Producing Ideas, a framework for producing ideas by former advertising executive James Webb Young
• Had meetings with two more developers about this project

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book
• Create an opportunity solution-tree diagram for this project

Asks:

• If you can get me an invitation code to Manus, please let me know!
• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred sixty-three was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

What I struggled with:

• I struggled to stay focused this week amid all the tariff turmoil.

What I learned:

• I need to be specific about the skills I’m looking for in a senior engineer.
• Visually showing how biographies and other books are connected would be valuable to entrepreneurs.
• Writing blog post series about biographies is a way to both create magnetic luck and connect with entrepreneurs who love to learn.
• The opportunity solution-tree diagram method detailed in Continuous Discovery Habits is a great way to capture all customer needs, pain points, and desires—and to show all the ways you can satisfy or solve them and to determine which of your ideas are good ones.
• I need to apply the methods from the above-mentioned book to this project.

Those are my struggles and learnings from the week.

An engineer recently reached out to me, cold. I wasn’t sure how I got on his radar, so I asked. He’s an avid learner who’s trying to round out his business skills to be a better entrepreneur. He shared that he’d read one of my blog post series about a biography I’d read and decided to reach out to me. This engineer is sharp, so I’m glad we connected.

I thought about that conversation more today, and I have a few takeaways:

• This engineer has a portfolio of side projects and cool things he’s building. Seeing them made me curious to learn more about them and him. They showed me that he isn’t just a talker. He’s executing, which gave him credibility.
• Whenever I hear from a reader that my posts helped them, it fires me up. That kind of feedback motivates me.
• In the last year, every person who reached out after reading my blog mentioned a post about a biography adding value to them and triggering them to reach out. I need to write more in-depth posts about biographies.
• Sharing my learnings about biographies has led to my meeting smart and interesting entrepreneurs across the country whom I’d never have met otherwise.
• The posts about biographies are helping me create magnetic luck (see here).
• Posts about entrepreneur biographies have filtered the type of people who reach out. It’s been entrepreneurs who are serious about reading to learn.
• I want to connect with more entrepreneurs who get value from my posts about biographies. I need to figure out how to let those readers know I want to hear from them.  
• I need to turn the old posts about biographies in these posts (and future posts) into a newsletter.
• Cold outreach works. More people should do it more often (in the right way). There’s zero to lose and lots to gain.

I never would have thought it, but writing about what I’m reading adds value to others and is a good way to connect with entrepreneurs who love to learn (my kind of people).

Yesterday, I shared that I caught up with a friend who’s a serial entrepreneur and avid reader. He’s serious about learning and solving problems, so for years he’s made reading a priority. He has time on his schedule early every morning to read books (I do too).

Today, I’ve been thinking about another takeaway from that conversation. One of his book discovery methods is paying attention to other books mentioned in the books he reads. (Many books cite other books when they borrow concepts.) He likes this approach because an author doesn’t usually mention a book if it isn’t worth reading or it’s not helpful—a mention is like a quality filter. Also, the suggested book will likely align with the period, industry, or person he’s studying. Suggested books allow him to go deeper into an area he’s already learning about. They keep him on topic.

I, too, use books to discover books (see here), so this resonated with me and got me thinking.

The pain point around this approach is that you must read a book to find the suggested books. The suggestions are like needles in a haystack. This isn’t an issue with a book I’m currently reading, but what If I want to know what books are mentioned in a book I read awhile back? Or what if I find a book and want to see what books mention it to determine its quality? As far as I know, that’s impossible. It’d be great to see a list of all the books mentioned in a particular book and a list of all other books that mention it. Books are connected, but it’s impossible to see the connections. Visually displaying those connections could unlock lots of value for readers and make it easier to discover useful books.  

Current Project: Reading books about entrepreneurs and sharing what I learned from them

Mission: Create a library of wisdom from notable entrepreneurs that current entrepreneurs can leverage to increase their chances of success

Cumulative metrics (since 4/1/24):

• Total books read: 57
• Total blog posts published: 364

This week’s metrics:

• Books read: 1
• Blog posts published: 7

What I completed this week (link to last week’s commitments):

• Read The Father of Spin, a biography of entrepreneur—and maybe even father of public relations—Edward Bernays  
• Connected with two more developers about this project
• Played with Gumloop and Lindi; I’m trying to find an invitation code to Manus

What I’ll do next week:

• Read a biography, autobiography, or framework book

Asks:

• If you can get me an invitation code to Manus, please let me know!
• If you know any senior full-stack developers interested in working on the software for my current project, please introduce us!

Week two hundred sixty-two was another week of learning. Looking forward to next week!